ACLU effort to put abortion ban to vote can proceed

KANSAS CITY (AP) — An appellate court panel ruled Monday that the American Civil Liberties Union can soon begin collecting signatures that would put a new Missouri law banning abortions at eight weeks of pregnancy to a public vote.

A three-judge panel of the state’s Court of Appeals found that Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, a Republican, was “without authority” to reject petitions to put the law on the 2020 ballot on constitutional grounds. The 31-page ruling was issued just hours after the panel heard oral arguments in the case.

Tony Rothert, ACLU of Missouri’s acting executive director, had argued that time was of the essence. Most of the new law, including the eight-week abortion ban, takes effect Aug. 28. The ACLU needs to collect more than 100,000 signatures. Rothert had argued that the signature gathering should begin by July 18.

“We are pleased with the ruling,” Rothert said. “We think the secretary of state was wrong and quite clearly trying to derail the referendum effort. We are happy that the court is going to get it back on track.”

The Secretary of State’s office didn’t immediately have a comment.

At issue is how the Republican-led Legislature voted to classify a section of the bill that changed the law to require both parents’ consent to abortions for minors in most cases. Because lawmakers made it an “emergency clause,” it took effect as soon as Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, signed it into law.

Under Missouri law, there is no right for a referendum when the law is addressing an emergency. The ACLU argued that parental consent wasn’t actually an emergency, while the law said it was “because of the need to protect the health and safety of women and their children, both unborn and born.”

The emergency issue is what led Ashcroft to reject the petitions.

The legal dispute over the abortion law comes as the state’s only abortion clinic, the Planned Parenthood clinic at 4251 Forest Park Avenue in St. Louis, fights its own court battle to continue providing the service despite a licensing dispute with the state health department.

Meanwhile, prominent Republican donor David Humphreys is weighing how to proceed with his own stalled effort to put the Missouri law to a public vote now that the ACLU has gotten the green light for its push.

The ACLU had sued after Ashcroft rejected petitions by it and Humphreys to put the law on the 2020 ballot.

Humphreys has cited the lack of exceptions for rape and incest in his opposition to the policy.

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